Construction
by Encrypted Pseudonym
Summary: Paine is on the rampage again. What does he want at the construction site? The Alpha Teens head in to check it out. Oneshot.


Written as part of the thirty word fiction challenge on the A.T.O.M. forums on tv. com. The word I chose was 'spade' hence the construction title and setting. I never usually finish anything but since this was quick to write and incredibly cheesy I managed to get to the end. There isn't exactly any character development, its mainly a bit of action/adventure to pass the time. I didn't have a beta reader so I apologise for any appauling spelling an grammer.

Disclaimer: Do you think I would be writing fanfition if I owned A.T.O.M.? No I didn't think so.

* * *

"Gear it up!" Axel said, eyes flashing as he slid his helmet over his head.

"Alright!" Lioness whooped as she mounted her bike, revving the engine. The rest of the team was right behind her as she sped out onto the street. Axel overtook her and screeched around a corner with Hawk swooping overhead. The five of them tore through the city racing to get ahead but none of them quite managing to pull away.

"Axel, we have a problem." Mr. Lee's voice crackled over the intercom. "Paine has been spotted, at the construction site for the new tower block, we don't know what he's up to but whatever it is I'm sure its not pretty."

"If Paine gets his hands on those industrial machines who knows what damage he could do to Landmark City." King growled.

"Whatever it is we can handle it." Hawk said indignantly, striking a pose as they zipped past an unsuspecting girl.

"Ok team, lets go." Axel urged as they changed direction a new course set for the construction site.

The site was eerily still as the Alpha Teens pulled up, a cloud of dust rising up as they disturbed the dry ground. The place appeared deserted, not a worker in sight. They climbed from their vehicles peering around the desolate area taking in an abandoned wheelbarrow containing quickly drying cement, a hard hat and safety goggles dropped carelessly nearby.

"No wonder the finish date has been set back." Shark commented lightly, shoving his hands in his pockets and worrying a loose stone with his shoe. The group moved forward listening out for any sounds that might give them a clue to the whereabouts of the ever elusive Paine and his cronies.

"I think we should split up." Axel said finally. "This is a big site and we have no idea if Paine is even still here. If we find anything just yell."

"I'm not sure Axel, every time we meet Paine we have a hard enough time beating him with all of us, how will we do it alone." Lioness argued a sceptical look on her face.

"You won't be Cat, at any sign of trouble get in touch we'll all be there. Besides I wasn't suggesting we all go on our own. I want you and King to check out the foreman's cabin. Shark and Hawk take the raw materials and I'll head straight to the crane. If we don't find anything we'll meet there in half an hour."

"Got it." Hawk said, giving a mock salute and heading off with Shark behind him.

"Just be careful alright?" Lioness asked of Axel still not convinced that the plan was the best they'd ever had.

"I could say the same thing to you." Axel replied and they parted. King and Lioness in one direction, Axel in the other. Lioness couldn't help glancing over her shoulder to see Axel disappear into the shadow of a large cement mixing truck.

"You're not really worried about facing Paine are you?" King asked as they passed the portaloos that had been set up for the workers. "I could take anything Paine throws at me. Courage of a lion, strength of one too." He boasted flexing his muscles. Lioness couldn't help but laugh at King's macho display.

"Sure, just like you took that spider in the bathroom this morning. Thank heavens you thought to grab a towel before running around screaming in blind panic." She teased and King looked a little abashed.

Behind them Spydah crept silently around the corner suppressing the malicious laugh that threatened to blow his cover. Once he was only a few feet away, looming over them and held up by his mechanical limbs he cleared his throat. Both Lioness and King jumped, spinning around to face him.

"Afraid of spiders eh?" Spydah cackled. "Meet one of even greater proportions."

"Spydah!" Lioness exclaimed dropping into a fighting stance. One of Spydah's metal legs shot forward, the pincer on the end snapping but Lioness blocked it with her forearm, batting it away. She twisted forward spinning into a kick however before the blow could build up any power another of his artificial limbs reached down the pincer painfully gripping her wrist. It lifted her from the ground, effectively ending her attack and he tossed her away. She flew through the air and crashed sharply into a portaloo causing a domino effect as each fell in turn. Lioness caught a glimpse of Spydah rounding on King before she slumped into unconsciousness.

"Lioness!" King cried before he was forced to turn back to the attacker as a barrage of blows began to reign down on him. He did his best to block each assault that came at him but he was being slowly forced backwards. Frustrated by the overwhelming amount of attacks that Spydah was managing to keep up, without allowing King to try for an attack of his own, King growled. "Get outta my grill!" He roared before charging forward and slamming into Spydah's torso knocking him back. The weedy man yelped, off balance, as King's fist swung up punching him in the jaw.

Lioness groaned as she came to, she had only been out for a few seconds but she still felt groggy. Apart from a slight pounding in her head she was pretty sure she was uninjured. Scrambling to her feet she ignored the dizziness as King threw yet another punch at Spydah.

"No!" she called as one of the insect like legs reached over King to get at his unprotected back. Running forward she sprung into a flying kick that struck the appendage away.

"Thanks." King said smiling at her.

"I've always got your back." She replied before launching into another attack.

* * *

"Do you think the others have found anything yet?" Hawk asked over his shoulder.

"I sure hope not, if it's a false alarm then we can leave and I can go catch some Z's." Shark replied.

"Yes but I wouldn't want to miss out on any action, its good for my image, any screen time is good screen time." Hawk said only minutes away from launching into a speech about the importance of publicity.

"Man, is all you ever think about career related?" Shark complained.

"Well is all you ever think about sleep related?" Hawk sniped as they came to the end of another monstrous pile of sand. "Lets turn here." He said and as they rounded the corner he ran straight into something big and hard. It felt disconcertingly like a brick wall, only fleshier.

"Flesh!" Shark yelled backing up as Hawk fell onto his butt.

"Huh?" Flesh said dropping one of the two massive pipes he was carrying. "What're you doin' here? Paine won't be pleased." He frowned down at the two of them as Hawk scrambled away still on the floor then stood up next to Shark.

"Ha, you have dust all up your back. Here I'll get it." Shark said bending forward and brushing the dust from Hawk's clothes. At that moment Flesh howled with rage and swung the remaining pipe in both hands. It swerved over Shark's head missing him by inches, disturbing his hair with the wind created from the force of the swing.

"Are you insane?" Hawk screamed jumping back, not clear if he was talking to Flesh or Shark.

"Wait I missed a bit." Shark told him.

"It doesn't matter!" Hawk said. "Look, keep him busy, I'll be right back." With that he ran off in the direction of the vehicles.

"I thought you didn't want to miss out on any action." Shark called after him before turning back to face Flesh and shoving his hands in his pockets again. Flesh had the pipe raised above his head ready to bring it smashing downwards. "So... hows life working for Paine?" Shark asked.

"Well, its ok, sometimes Mr. Paine lets me destroy things and I like doing that. But I get the feeling he isn't very happy." Flesh told him a concerned look on his face, still poised to attack.

"Bummer." Shark shrugged. Flesh frowned again, then shook his head as though remembering who he was talking to.

"Hey!" He said and let the pipe finally drop. Shark dodged to the side easily and the weapon thudded into the ground. Not bothering to heave the metal bar into the air again Flesh instead attacked with one of his hulking arms. Shark ducked and rolled out of the way. Getting more and more aggravated at his inability to hit the blond teen Flesh roared and swung at him again and again.

"Dude, you need to chill out!" Shark said grinning as he successfully evaded another powerful but slow blow.

"Keep still so I can hit you!" Flesh commanded clenching his fists in anger.

Shark continued to avoid every attack and Flesh was quickly tiring. The surfer was beginning to wonder exactly where his team mate had gotten to when a deep voice blasted out across the construction site.

"FLESH! SPYDAH! I need you now!" Paine boomed. Flesh stopped his attack and ran off in the direction of the crane. Shark gave chase but lost sight of him when the hulking figure disappeared round a corner. He came out in a clearing and spotted Axel standing by a pile of scaffolding. Moments later King and Lioness came dashing into the area both panting.

"Did you hear Paine?" Shark, Lioness and King all said simultaneously.

"I heard him." Axel replied, "Saw him too. But he got away and called for his cronies. Where's Hawk?"

Shark shrugged. "I dunno he just took off."

"Typical." Lioness muttered rolling her eyes. Before she could really complain about Hawk's unreliability Paine's maniacal laughter echoed about them. They spun looking for the source.

"There." King pointed. Sure enough Paine was seated in the driving seat of the crane. The machine roared to life with a jolt and the wrecking ball that had been used to demolish the old building shook on its chain.

"What do you want Paine?" Axel spat angrily.

"Power, money, destruction but most of all pain!" Paine replied launching into another bout of sinister laughter. "When I heard about this crane I just had to get my hands on it. I've been planning a little redevelopment for Landmark City. We'll see how powerful Mr. Lee is without the communication and satellite towers."

"I can't let that happen Paine." Axel replied eyes flashing dangerously.

"Well then I'll have to settle for a little destruction. Starting with you Manning." The crane lurched into movement the wrecking ball jumping. Paine pulled a lever and the arm of the crane moved round swinging the ball with it.

"Duck!" Lioness called and she threw herself to the ground. The rest of the group scattered dodging the heavy ball. Paine allowed the crane to finish its swing before bringing it back round to fly at the group. "This is crazy Axel." Lioness said as she pulled out of a hasty roll narrowly avoiding being crushed by the dangerous machine. "We can't keep dodging it forever."

"We have no choice." Axel growled through gritted teeth. "Just keep moving, try to get closer so we can stop him!"

Without warning the wrecking ball jerked off in another direction. Hawk flew into sight and it was clear Paine was aiming to hit him instead. But it was too late the ball soared past Hawk, harmlessly colliding with a pile of bricks and spraying rubble everywhere. Hawk zoomed closer then flew through the open door of the crane, grabbed Paine by the scruff of the neck and hauling him out into the clearing.

"Honestly, you'd all be lost without me." Hawk said modestly, dumping the struggling Paine in front of Axel.

"What did you do with the workers?" Axel demanded.

"I gave them the day off, wouldn't want them to feel overworked." Paine grinned, though his teeth were clenched so it had the look of a macabre ventriloquist's dummy.

"That's you Paine, always the generous employer, really in touch with your employees." Shark commented.

Paine looked down at the floor, still on his knees before Axel and began to laugh again. "I like to share how I'm feeling, especially my pain!" He sneered, with that he surged upward bringing his hand to settle over Axel's forehead. A green glow erupted between them and Axel let out a strangled groan slowly sinking to his knees.

"Axel!" King cried concerned and reached out to help his friend.

"Don't." Axel managed to choke out.

There was a loud clunk. Paine looked up confused for a second, evil smile still plastered across his face, then his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell to the floor releasing his hold on Axel who slumped to the ground as well.

Just behind Paine, Lioness stood, still clutching the spade she had used to hit the villain over the head in the other hand she held a neon yellow workers hat. "Health and safety at work, always wear a hard hat." She quipped tossing the hat onto the floor beside Paine. Lioness stared at the two fallen men for a second before dropping the spade and rushing to Axel's side.

"Axel... Axel... Are you alright?" She asked gently shaking his shoulders. Manning let out a small moan stirring slightly. Lioness' face split into a grin.

"Ugh... My head hurts." Axel murmured weakly, his eyes flickering open.

"Not as much as Paine's will." Hawk pointed out not very helpfully. King elbowed Hawk out of the way and held out a hand to help Axel up.

"I spy trouble." Shark said pointing to a car speeding towards them distracting them from the fact that Paine was waking up.

"Nobody move." Paine growled weakly, drawing a gun. The teens froze watching helplessly as the car pulled up and Spydah threw open the door sliding over to let Paine climb in and take the wheel. "I'd like to say this was fun..." He said reaching up gingerly to touch the back of his head. "Till next time Manning."

Axel watched despairingly as Paine slipped from his grasp again. The only consolation had been the suppressed wince when Paine felt the newly formed bump.

"I could go after him." Hawk offered, ready to take to the sky.

"There's no point. I won't risk it." Axel said turning to head back to their rides.

"Still at least we saved the day again." Lioness pointed out trying to lighten the mood.

"Yeah we did." Axel replied brightening up considerably. "Last one home has to pay for the take out!" He chuckled racing ahead of the others.

* * *

I may or may not attempt another one, it depends how desperate I am to avoid revision. I'd appreciate any comments or criticism so feel free to review. Go on make my day!


End file.
